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Metallica albums are so hard to judge. To me, Metallica are so absurdly superhumanly important. They are so larger than life. Each album release is not just an album, but an event. It is a climactic shift for my whole culture. I feel like Metallica releases are as significant to me as major life events like first kisses or first drinks or going to university for the first time. Metallica are as close to a religious leader as I’ll ever experience in my life time. As such, objectively judging them is somewhat impossible.

You are talking to an avid, ardent St. Anger defender here. You are talking to someone who could spend twenty-five minutes talking about ‘The Judas Kiss’ on a first date should you let him. You are talking to someone who feels like a chink in Metallica’s armour is a worry almost able to spoil a whole day over. When Metallica do Metallica well, its otherworldly levels of special and when they disappoint its a talking point for months. I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to judge or review them, then, given that this band wrote Master Of Puppets, which I do honestly and with all the sincerity in my soul, think I might feel about the same way devout religious people probably feel about their holy books. I don’t mean that to sound disrespectful, but its important for the context behind the review to convey how truly disproportionately this group affects my sense-of-self, worldview and culture. Ever seen a grown man cry when his sports team loses a game? That same ludicrous thing is what Metallica taps into in me.And I don’t even consider myself that big a fan compared to a lot of people I’ve met. You’ll never see me scoffing at someone and saying I’m a bigger fan, or getting jealous and competitive about another fan. And yet…

When I hear tracks like the first three singles; ‘Hardwired’ ‘Moth Into Flame’ and ‘Atlas, Rise!’ then, considering everything I’ve just written about this band and its cultural and emotional significance to me, I am suddenly filled with a sense of hope, excitement and the feeling that everything is all right with the world. This is the feeling of being a teenager, I can still feel the green sofa on which I first really got into ….And Justice For All, can still see the swings in the park when I roared the chorus of ‘Blackened’ at the top of my lungs out in, to amuse my equally excitable teenage friends. I can remember being younger than that and feeling genuinely frightened by the darker moments on the Black album. Feeling like I might go to hell for listening to it. I can see the movie I was ignoring when choosing to inspect the Black Album closely for the first time on headphones instead of engaging with the family movie night. (What Dreams May Come). I can still feel the rattle of the cheap bus windows the first time I realized Kill ‘Em All wasn’t old fashioned, it was charming. I can smell, see and taste things when I listen to Metallica. I have super clear memories of almost any time someone insulted St Anger when I was in the room. These three singles bring all those memories back faster, harder and clearer than Lulu, Beyond Magnetic or ‘Lords Of Summer (First Pass Demo)’ were able to, or indeed any live broadcast since about 2004 could.

Metallica were undoubtedly in a bad place before they dropped ‘Hardwired.’ They had whittled away a boatload of goodwill with LuLu, with the failed 3D movie and with ‘Lords Of Summer (First Pass Demo).’ The Metallica who were unstoppable to me seemed to be gone. People were stopping to care. Metallica were becoming a joke. What fans from the ’80s felt around the time of the ’90s eyeliner or ’90s fans felt around the time they watched Lars slamming doors on the documentary, its was starting to feel like the only feeling that could be felt about Metallica. That feeling, or worse still, ambivalence. This is the most important band in the world for the love of all things sacred… being ambivalent towards them feels unnatural. It feels tantamount to defeat. To depression almost. It was with a great sigh of relief then, that ‘Hardwired’ was equal to, if not better than even, the weaker moments on St Anger or Death Magnetic. We can never expect them to follow up the first six albums, that way sheer unbridled madness lies, but if they can keep up with the best half of their latter day albums and not turn into ‘Lords Of Summer – The Band’ then all would be well. As long as they sound like they, y’know, give as s*** .

Then comes ‘Moth Into Flame.’ Pow. Same again. Its like Death Magnetic with better production, better vocals, and more concise songwriting. Oh, what’s that? ‘Atlas, Rise’ ? Just as good. Oh thank goodness. Its going to be good, I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones. Its going to be… uh, oh, ok, nevermind.

Yeah, its nice, its nice to try and capture the vibe of C.O.C’s ‘Heaven’s Not Overflowing.’ Its nice to capture the vibe of ‘Devil’s Dance’ again. Its nice to have two six track discs each ending with a lengthy closer. Another song about Cthulu is a good idea. You’ve had success with that before. Its nice to do a tribute to the fallen Lemmy condsidering the specific impact he had on Metallica and vice versa. I mean Lemmy outright praises, thanks and accredits Metallica more than once in his autobiography and covered ‘Whiplash’ …Metallica covered numerous Motorhead songs and shared the stage with Lemmy. Sure. Its not going to be just another hollow tribute by any other band, its going to be personal and meaningful, yeah?

Well; here’s the thing, that Heaven’s Not Overflowing on the silly-title-of-the-month award winner ‘ManUnKind’ moment is fun and awesome, but the song doesn’t fit the mood of the rest of the record at all, really sits out like a sore thumb and probably could’ve served better as a B-Side. Just because something is fun doesn’t mean it fits. The awkward, complex drum pattern just reminds me of that section in the Some Kind Of Monster documentary where Lar’s father recommends they ‘delete that’ …is it an attempt to redeem awkward beats or is it another moment someone should’ve saved them from themselves. ‘Murder One’ for all its potential is a forgettable, skippable, unnecessary addition to the album. Was the best way to pay tribute to the man really by writing the most boring song of the album, and just adding in some of Lemmy’s lyrics? Is that what Lemmy would want. Is that what Lemmy’s fans want? Is that what anybody wants? With the accompanying music video I get the Lemmy tribute aspect comes across more, but hey have you ever read Lemmy’s autobiography? I bet that a better tribute would’ve been just to cover a track off of one of those albums like Bastards or We Are Motorhead that he felt didn’t get the recognition they deserved.

When I’m on the subject of niggles… why have a song called ‘Am I Savage’ with no Diamond Head relation, but then have a direct Diamond Head reference in the intro on Confusion? Not just any Diamond Head reference but an ‘Am I Evil’ one specifically. Like. What are you trying to do. Surely, those two things are supposed to go together?! Where they initially together and got separated later in editing? Are they two separate similar shout outs to the same song? ‘Am I Savage?’ ‘Am I Evil?’ or Am I reading too much into this?

I like the two disc closing tracks ‘Spit Out The Bone’ and ‘Halo On Fire,’ …but they’re clearly on the wrong discs! Disc one is much more focused on Thrash. Disc two is much more focused on the Load style. Swap the two disc closers around and you’ve almost got themed discs. Might have flowed better. ‘Spit Out The Bone’ for me is arguably the best song on the album, maybe even of the last four albums. It could do with having a shorter build up time. It could do with sitting closer to ‘Hard Wired.’ It and ‘Hardwired’ are like the focused and expanded evil twins of eachother. They bookend the album. They’d bookmark a disc of the thrashier stuff even more strongly though. A disc each of each direction would be cool and you could pick which disc you were in the mood for.

I wonder what happened to the rest of Metallica’s catalogue though. Metallica were more than just Thrash and Load. I can hear lots of Kill ‘Em All. I can hear lots of Load. I can hear lots and lots of Death Magnetic. What about The Black Album or Ride The Lightening though? Or even poor misunderstood St Anger. Well, upon repeat listens actually I can hear some Black Album on ‘Here Comes Revenge’ and ‘Am I Savage’ actually. Initial gut reaction underplays that. You just feel like its Here comes Death Magnetic band trying to play more like Kill ‘Em All… you like that? Ok, well then here’s some Death Magnetic band trying to play Load a bit heavier. Uh…what?

I have to say. On first listen, tracks like ‘Am I Savage?’ and ‘Confusion’ really missed the mark for me. They bored me. Had me questioning the band’s choices. Was this really on the same album as ‘Moth Into Flame’ ? Repeat listens have revealed more depth. Have highlighted the swinging in-the-pocket grooves. Have allowed me to forget my expectations and just let the album be its own thing. So, maybe ‘Here Comes Revenge’ isn’t just a poor man’s ‘Broken Beaten Scared’ after all, and hey, that vocal during the guitar lead has an almost ‘Outlaw Torn’-esque emotive quality to it. A watered down, middle-aged version of it, but a version of it none the less. Repeat listens are this album’s friend. Its a grower. I bet much of its reputation is already formed, and all of our initial ‘Yay’ or ‘Yuck!’ gut reactions will stick around for decades, but to be honest I hated over half this stuff on first listen and now I like a good three quarters.

This album is a bit of a difficult one to get straight in my head. UK journalist Terry Beezer once said Millionaires can’t make Thrash Metal. When hearing ‘Spit Out The Bone’ I’m happy to report he’s got it wrong but then ‘Murder One’ and ‘Dream No More’ have me knowing in my gut he’s dead right. I mean, stacked up against the worst songs on Metallica’s worst albums, maybe they kind of pass, barely, but against the best moments of those albums, not even close to being close to close. And the mythical quality of the best Metallica albums? Not even visible on the horizon. I mean, would you honestly want to see half of this album live if you knew what else you’d be missing out on. Even if Metallica did a show with no hits and no fan favourites, I’d still want to hear the deep cuts off of everything else prioritized over the deep cuts on this. Or would I? Hmmm. Its like a war inside my head (and not the PTSD war in my head of the ‘Confusion’ video). First impressions say I’d skip this stuff when choosing a live setlist, but repeat listening to the vocals in ‘Now That We’re Dead’ …hmm, I’m not sure anymore. Hmmm.

Ok, Ok. Let me think… So yeah. I’ve had some criticisms of this album, especially on the very first listen. That all being said. This is no bad album. Not even close. The band just get judged so much more harshly due to their significance. The intro to ‘Now That We’re All Dead’ ? Amazing fun. Who could possibly not enjoy that? The best riffs in ‘Here Comes Revenge’ and ‘Confusion’? Yes of course they put a smile on my face, of course I’d want to learn them on guitar. This is Metallica we’re talking about here, James Hetfield knows a thing or two about writing memorable riffs! Increasingly though, they don’t seem to know how to edit themselves, how to cut out the flab, how to be concise. The best thing about this album is that, on those first three singles, it felt like the band had finally worked out how to be concise again, and that’s probably where a lot of disappointment on my part came from, the realization that it was not to be. Should’ve guessed… it was a double album after all. Its hardly a medium known for its focus and discipline.

Then again, the best song on the album is 7-minutes long, so being concise isn’t everything. Just ask …And Justice For All. One things for sure. Metallica dodged a bullet with this album. They were about to slide into the ‘I don’t want to hear anything new ever again’ folder along with the likes of The Rolling Stones, but with the best moments of the record, they’ve dug their nails into staying relelvent. Of course, this isn’t a perfect record. I strongly wish they’d record firier, angrier, more personally invested performances. I wish they’d sound more excited. I wish they’d be livlier and convey more energy. I mean, if Exodus and Testament can still do it, at the same age from the same background, then we know it is physically possible. Have you heard the title track to Blood In Blood Out? It can be done.

Anyway; Despite the one or two filler tracks. Despite the slighly flow-diminishing running order. Despite the surprisngly unfitting tribute to Lemmy. Despite the performance not rocking the hell out. Despite any niggles or nitpicking, this is an album I’ll be listening to in five years time. Its an album that gets less dissapointing with each listen. Its an album that whether its a sane or rational thing to happen or not will inform a disproportionate amount of who I am as a person. I’ll never be objective about this so I won’t even pretend to be.

If history is anything to go by, I’ll have a different oppinion on this in a month, quarter and year from now. I’ll probablly have a different opinion every time you ask me. This review is by no means the last you’ll hear from me on the matter. But overall; I’m glad Metallica made new music and I’m very glad to own an album with ‘Hardwired’ and ‘Spit Out The Bone’ on it.

...Thought that was the end? Think again. This is a Metallica album. Initial gut reactions are one thing, measured multi-listen reviews are another. Even later revalidations are also required. Having absolutely hammered listening to this now, I’ve more left to say. I’ve listened track by track as they were released, all together as a piece of work, in custom orders of my own choosing, accompanied by videos or all alone as audio only, focused or in the background, and all that has melted together in my mind into one whole where I now have a much better grasp on my feelings.

Overall; I think this is a strong album. In all honesty, perhaps a single disc of all the Thrash stuff and a disc of the Black/Reload stuff six months later would’ve worked better, but overall, there’s nothing poor here. Well, maybe ‘Murder One’ for my personal taste… but that’s about it (and I’m sure there’s people out there who are throwing cheetos at the screen screaming that its their favourite song, so live and let live). Tracks like ‘Confusion,’ ‘Am I Savage’ and especially ‘Halo On Fire’ all have really strong endings and work better on repeat listens and in album context. When you deconstruct them or try and guess what they’re going to do, instead of just letting them exist, sure they don’t live up to the standards of your own imagination, but they do work the way Metallica planned them and you just have to accept that your hypothetical perfect version does not exist. Like my Andy Sneap produced, non-brickwalled version of Death Magnetic, it doesn’t exist but that doesn’t stop ‘That Was Just Your Life,’ ‘Judas Kiss’ or ‘All Nightmare Long’ from being bad-ass.

What also becomes apparent after all the dust has settled is how right my gut was on the positive matters. ‘Hardwired,’ ‘Moth Into Flame,’ ‘Atlas, Rise,’ ‘Now That We’re Dead,’ ‘Here Comes Revenge’ and especially, especially ‘Spit Out The Bone’ are my favourite tracks. They are all exactly what I want from the band, and proof that they can still do amazing things even with all the fame and money and age and expectation and conflicting fanbase demographics. These songs, each and every one, I WOULD love to see live.

On repeat listens; I also really connect to parts of other songs, the end of ‘Halo On Fire’ once the guitar lead comes in is priceless, the harsh vocals later in ‘Here Comes Revenge’ are really exciting, the clever mid section of ‘Confusion’ is good. The guitar solo on ‘Dream No More’ is like the best stuff on Reload and I can see now how the ‘you turn to stone’ section is trying to channel The Black Album’s slower tracks. That main riff in the admittedly-still-out-of-place ‘ManUnKind’ is pretty infectious. I mean, they aren’t as great as the best moments on the best albums, (but then, what is?), however they do still warrant attention and respect. More than that even, genuine warmth.

On the matter of the special edition bonus tracks; firstly, the new version of ‘Lords Of Summer’ is a huge improvement. The production, the performance, the attitude, the arrangement, and especially the guitar solos. It all just works so much better. It feels more vital and less like medicority eating Metallica alive. Its celebratory lyrics even put me in a good mood.

The Maiden and Deep Purple covers we’ve heard before, sure but its nice to have them all the same, and the Ronnie medley in particular is pretty great. Their guitar tone on these songs works really well, almost like a history lesson or through-line. Then there’s a ten-song live set: A Diamond Head cover, songs exclusively from Ride The Lightning and Kill ‘Em All and then ending with a live version of ‘Hardwired’ from another concert, ten live tracks, three covers and an extra Metallica song… overall its a pretty substantial bonus. On the Rasputin Music show; the performances and banter all seem happy and grateful and fun, and it all has a great jovial atmosphere. Its a nice addition. I don’t think I’d buy it on its own or anything, there’s plenty of alternative Metallica live shows (especially on their extensive website) to choose from elsewhere, but it is by no means a let down and is actually really rather good indeed. If this was your first Metallica album and you got this on the end too, it would really rule.

Ok. A bit of a fractured review, but it matches my fractured reaction to the album and the fractured way in which I initially consumed it. To summarize: My initial reaction to it, especially disc 2, was disappointment but it really grows. It is not perfect and could easily loose two or three songs, or each song could easily loose thirty seconds to a minute each. The running order could be slightly different [and for my own future listening I am listening to it in the custom order in the appendix below the review]. ‘ManUnKind’ doesn’t fit no matter how good or bad it is or not. ‘Murder One’ is my least favourite track despite Lemmy being amazing and specifically important to this band, directly.

…All of those niggles aside, and they are just niggles, this is pretty damn good. The songs each have something good about them (Hello daaaaarkness, say good-bye), and the aforementioned half or so of the album that I really like, well, I really really like it now! Those songs each have something to love about them. They are very good indeed, and really keep Metallica alive and relevant and live up to all my expectations.

This band are too gigantic, larger than life, and both culturally and emotionally significant for me to have any sort of detached, logical, impartial idea about the objective quality of the record, but in my guts, when I hear ‘Spit Out The Bone’ I know that everything is right with the world; at least for today (despite what the dystopian lyrics would have you believe). Lords of Summer undenied indeed.

Helloween’s family tree has given us a lot of great musical moments over the years. If you are interested in that band, you can follow the members in and out of that Teutonic institution and find quite a lot of great bands to get into. Not only can you follow a line of logic to Gamma Ray and Freedom Call, or backwards to Blind Guardian at a stretch. Almost anywhere you look there’s some cool band that probably suits your tastes.

One of the great bands you can find on this musical treasure hunt is Germany’s Iron Savior, formed by Kai Hansen, Piet Sielck and Thomen Stauch. They’re a melodic Power Metal band with Sci-Fi themed lyrics and a concept about a self-aware spaceship. Yeah… not exactly wizards and dragons anymore.

Opening with a military march style intro and dual guitar harmonies with an almost Queen flavour on opener ‘The Arrival’ the album lulls you in, before bursting out of the traps with the first proper song ‘Atlantis Falling;’ an up-tempo rocker with that heavier-than-NWOBHM, lighter-than-Thrash style of riffing, some bouncy drumming with lots of space and breaks to show off in, a slightly adventurous and atypical song structure without being outright proggy, and a rather unique vocal style within the subgenere. This is no Bruce Dickinson or Geoff Tate copycat, this is something different. Its also got an absolutely delicious guitar solo that displays everything great about Power Metal; the feel, melody and fun abound.

This song sets up the feel of the whole album, you’ve got driving,forward pressing drums creating a sense of urgency, you’ve got quick chuggy riffs and you’ve got barked low pitched vocals then it gets offset by (sometimes effects-laiden) catchy clean vocal sections with anthemic sing-along choruses and elevated to greatness in the mid-sections once the guitar solos come in and really take things from good to great. There’s one piano ballad in the middle, but otherwise its variations on fast and faster, simple and slightly adventurous, but all within a reasonably similar framework. Depending on what mood you’re in you may call that samey. I call it focused and consistent.

Highlights include the fun catchy title track which feels somewhere between Judas Priest’s Delivering The Goods and Motley Crue’s Live Wire during the verses before going off-track with its mid-paced robotic chorus, as well as the very Blind Guardian flavoured ‘Riding On Fire’ and the Hansi Kürsch guest spot ‘For The World.’ Although to be honest, its all pretty unskippable.

The band would later go on to new line-ups, move further out of the shadows of other bands and become more of a full on real band than a fun side-project supergroup of sorts, but this strong and fun debut is still essential listening for fans of the band and the genre at-large. Piet never needed the other guys to deliver his vision, but its damn nice that he chose to back then, and damn fun we can still listen to it now. Highly recommended.

Do you like Judas Priest? What about Accept? Or the heavier Iron Maiden stuff? Ok good. Do you also like Helloween, or indeed Gamma Ray? Well then… I think I’ve got a recommendation for you.

Germany’s Primal Fear, featuring ex-Gamma Ray singer Ralf Scheepers play a very traditional and blistering take on Power Metal. Does all of Blind Guardian’s prog or Freedom Call’s happy vibes make you yearn for something a bit more simplistic and earthy? Do you wish Stratovarius didn’t have so much keyboard? Do you wish Hammerfall were a bit heavier? Then, as this album puts it, welcome to the church of blood…

The usual media line on this band is ‘Its as if Judas Priest’s Painkiller album was a whole band’ and although in the long run its slightly inaccurate, it does set you up for the right ballpark. Imagine a Thrash band covering ‘Bloodstone’ off of Screaming For Vengeance, or Gamma Ray covering a mid-tempo Accept track like ‘Dogs On Leads’ or even at a push imagine one of Kreator’s more melodic moments but with Rob Halford guest-singing.

Mix all that in a blender, add a chunky, crisp ’90s production job, a bird-mascott and a few surprises and you’ve got Jaws Of Death. Its an album of straight-forward Priest-worshipping Power Metal with incredible vocals and lead guitar, but distinctly German. Its Thrashier than the bands you’d jokingly call Flower Metal instead of Power Metal, and less folky or proggy than some Power Metal bands went in the mid-to-late ’90s, yet harder and heavier than the NWOBHM influenced and ballad filled likes of Hammerfall.

There’s a nice bit of diversity too, to break things up a bit. ‘Into The Future’ has that slightly disorientating, pulsing vibe you’d almost expect from Voivod. ‘Under Your Spell’ starts off with a synth line before evolving into a heavy yet slow track you’d expect in the middle of a Tornillo-era modern Accept album, ‘Play To Kill’ on the other hand sounds like it came straight off of Peace Sells But Who’s Buying for the first 40 seconds or so. After all that has you reeling there’s even a Rainbow cover song on there.

So yeah, its kind of hard to even talk about this album without making comparisons to other artist’s work, but you know what…so what? I love this album. I love this album because I like Hammerfall. I love this album because I like Accept. I love this album because I love the Painkiller album and wish there was more of it. I love this as a Gamma Ray fan. …But I also love it on its own merits! Jaws Of Death is a catchy, well written, entertaining heavy metal album that hits all the right sweet-spots, that has the heavy guitars I like, that has the anthemic choruses I want, that has double-kicks more often than not. That has a powerful and technical singer who has a broad range of squeals, shouts, shrieks, and clean singing styles, propped up by those Teutonic gang backing vocals every now and again ….and best of all the album is absolutely slathered in heroic guitar solos.

In terms of the band’s back catalougue; Jaws Of Death (their 1999 sophomore release) is certainly one of the best. Its a lot stronger and more defined than the debut, its more focused and pure than some of the newer stuff and just has that indefinable x-factor about it. If you like Power Metal, Thrash Metal or especially if you like Traditional Metal you’d probably love this band’s whole output, and if you’re going to try out the band for the first time I’d say there’s no better place than here.

Just listen to the vocals on ‘When The Night Comes,’ the chorus of ‘Final Embrace’ or the superb lead guitar on ‘Under Your Spell’ … this is the pure essence of Heavy Metal right here. This is what its all about. This is what Manowar spent their lives banging on about. This is something you should probably add to you collection if you haven’t already.

If you enjoy Power Metal then this is an album that will either be already in your collection or pretty high up on your to-do list; since 1990’s Tales Of The Twilight World by the German band Blind Guardian is a pretty big deal, this album helped the band reach new heights, helped the band to separate their style from precursor Thrash and Speed stylings and into more purely Power territory, as well as introducing the world to their concert favourite ballad ‘Lord Of The Rings.’

‘Twilight World occupies a sweet spot in the band’s discography where it still has all the raw charm of the early material, but introduces a lot of the tropes from their better known material, such as Queen-inspired harmonies, choral involvement and progressive structuring and arrangements. Hansi ‘s vocals are really developing into the style fans know and love and Kalle Trapp’s production job sounds even better than on the previous two records.

Like several other Blind Guardian albums; the album boasts guest appearances from other musical greats including Iron Saviour’s Piet Sielck and frequent collaborator, Gamma Ray’s Kai Hansen. The lyrics reference a lot of popular fiction, like Dune, E.T. And The Tommyknockers, as well as all the Tolkien you can expect from the band who famously made a whole concept album about the Salmarillion.

If you are into the catchy choruses, there’s plenty to love here, and you’ll be humming melodies from this record all week long after hearing it. If you are into the guitar heroism, the leads and solos are delightful as always, and if you want riffs there’s plenty of Thrash in here to get you excited.

Highlights include the strong opener ‘Traveller In Time,’ as well as the excellent ‘Lost In The Twilight Hall’ and of course the aforementioned ‘Lord Of The Rings.’

If you are into the band, this album is a real no-brainer and if you are into the genre, its something you really ought to try out soon. There’s some seriously high quality memorable material on here, plenty of impressive solos and fills, and some fairly interesting lyrics. This really was the first of a streak of Blind Guardian gems from the 1990s, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this type of music.

After two great sludgy and slightly proggy bruisers in the form of Red Album and Blue Record, Baroness pulled a dramatic change of direction with their third full-length record, the double album Yellow & Green. That album was pretty much a masterpiece which really expanded the band’s possibilities, even if it was in a way more commercial and less heavy.

With their fourth album, Purple, the swampy southern band tries to bridge the two worlds, taking the more obvious singles from each of their eras, mixing them together, and using the mixture as the template for an album worth of banging, interesting, well-crafted rock music. It’s a bit less Radiohead than Green but its also a bit less Mastodon than Blue Record.

The direction is one thing; the quality is what’s important. There’s no questions on the quality front whatsoever. You might not like the lack of heaviness or the lack of prog, but you cannot disagree that this is one well-made collection of tunes. The musicianship is great, the production is great, the vocals are getting better, and the songs are memorable. Month’s after my first listen I still find myself humming the likes of ‘Kerosene’ and ‘The Iron Bell,’ I still find my thumbs rushing to chose ‘Shock Me’ when I’m deciding what to listen to for my walk to work.

There’s just a nice balance between variety and consistency, there are fast and slow moments, periods of quick fury and periods of slow somber reflection, but it all feels like one cohesive whole. An album where you could swap the track order around and still get the same journey.

This has far more musical DNA in common with Once More Round The Sun than for example, Through Silver In Blood, so the heavy heavy sludge crowd may still find it off putting, but for the rest of us who just like a good time, this is one very enjoyable selection of gnarly Rock singles that’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Red Fang fans will find a lot to enjoy here.

Posted 8 months ago in People's reaction after finding out you like metalI got nothing but grief for it in high school. Constant teasing, people shouting in the street from moving cars, people squaring up and starting fights, always having people talk shit behind my back. I even remember going up to a bar once and the non metal guy at the bar just looked pure hatred into my eyes and said 'get out of my face you're making me fucking sick.' That was a small, backwards town full of racists, homophobes and general idiots anyway though. In university it was just a bit more like, oh, well, I'll not be your friend but I won't actively be a dick about it. Nowadays as an adult, people just look at me like 'Why?' My stock answer is either 'Some people like horror films, if music was film, metal would be horror.' Or 'Not everyone can eat really spicy food, but that doesn't mean no-one can.' I generally don't bring it up. Recently, one of my co-workers noticed a motorhead pin on my backpack, and decided to throw the horns at me instead of greeting me for the next month or so, but not in a mean spirited way.